


The Human Factor

by Stardust_and_Strawberries



Series: The Fosterson Files [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (spoilers: Darcy and Ian not Jane and Thor), Academia, Asgardian Magic, Asgardians and Wakandans and Physicists oh my!, Awesome Jane Foster, Breakups, Darcy has good friends who have her back, F/M, Food, Humor, Revenge Fantasy, Science, Sexual Harrassment, Sif is not a bitch, Thor Is Not Stupid, Time Travel, Wakanda, Women in Science, conferences, gratuitous abuse of physics, imposter syndrome, parent child relationships, relationship difficulties, sexual harassment in academia, spot the self insert character, the non con warning is for sexual harassment there is no rape, women in STEM
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-07-23 19:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7476093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stardust_and_Strawberries/pseuds/Stardust_and_Strawberries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane flies in to London to give the biggest scientific presentation of her career at the Frontiers 2016 conference. Nervous about the reception she'll receive from the scientific community, she fails to notice that other forces are taking an interest in her and her work. Meanwhile Darcy has problems of her own to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A chilly breeze tumbled down the slopes of the Hessdalen valley, ruffling the scrubby grass. An observer with the right abilities (there were a few, even on this planet) would have detected a change in the atmosphere; depending on how they had refined their sensitivity they may have perceived it as a subtle alteration of the electrical charge of the air, as a sudden waft of the scent of somewhere else, somewhere other, or simply as a feeling of difference, as though the axis of the world had shifted slightly and then stuck in a new position. For a moment the fabric of the universe held its breath. The connection had been made, now with infinite delicacy something was prizing apart the warp and weft of space time, inching through while trying to cause the least possible disruption.

Now even a casual observer, unattuned to the secret currents of the universe,mouldy have noticed that something was happening. Sparks of purple fire spat and cracked over the edges of the stones and the rough grass beat against the wind. The network of light spread from its origin, reaching, seeking, before collapsing back in on itself to a point of impossible brilliance. This then exploded into a cascade of glowing orbs which rolled down the hillside, leaving two figures standing on what had previously been bare rock.

The drama of their arrival was rather spoiled by the way that one let out an impressive string of scatological curse words and started chasing the balls of light down the hill while the other toppled forward onto his hands and knees.

The woman chasing the lights down the hill was demonstrating remarkable speed and agility, far in excess of anything even an enhanced human could manage, but still had to throw herself face first onto the last one to capture it. "Audhumla's pendulous teats, we were supposed to arrive quietly!" she growled as she drained the magic from it. It vanished with a sad little pop.

"I am fine, by the way." said her companion, who was now lying facedown on the ground. "The effort of channeling more power than I have ever attempted before then holding it while you took your thrice Norns-cursed time casting the runes was really not that great."

The woman's face softened into concern as she raced back to him. "You are unharmed?"

"Just give me a moment." he rolled over with a groan. "And some of that Dwarven honeyed fudge you've been hiding in your pocket."

She grinned and punched him in the shoulder, a blow that would have killed a human, but gave him the fudge anyway. He sat up to eat it, looking around curiously while she consulted the flickering runes scrolling across the ornate bracer on her wrist. 

"We are exactly where I predicted." she said with more than a hint of smugness.

"I know. The atmosphere is contaminated, bloated with trapped heat. All the currents are distorted." he looked up, still chewing. "It is somewhat uncomfortable."

"Will you be alright?"

He nodded briskly. "Of course. We have a job to do. It is that way." He stood up, brushing the crumbs from his tunic, then leapt thirty metres into the air. The outline of his body flickered as he ascended. By the time he hit the top of his arc he had taken the form of a sea eagle. He splayed his wings to catch the air of his descent then flew east with powerful wing beats.

The woman rolled her eyes. "Yes, because that form will not attract attention in central London." she muttered, then followed him as a greylag goose.

***

Heimdall lingered for an astonished moment in his mothers' garden, then remembered the scythe he was holding and lowered it slowly. "I need to use your scrying stone to call Sif!" he shouted to his third mother, who was eradicating a nest of hornets from the side of the hall.

His mother adjusted her grip on the queen hornet, who she had in a head lock. She shifted her legs around the giant insect's abdomen, immobilising the stinger, before replying. "Have you pruned the copperwood yet?"

"Mother! This is urgent! I saw something most bizarre on Midgard!"

"Well remind her that she shall be taking us to Yrva's feasting hall next Day of Victory!"

"I am certain that she knows that Mother."

"And tell her to call her mothers more often!" she called, drawing her dagger and slicing off the queen hornet's head in one fluid motion. "And when you have finished come and help me get this onto the compost heap!"

***

"Leave!" snapped Natasha, slapping Tony's hand away from the Quinjet control panel.

"Just one little diagnostic? To check how the updates are performing?"

"Fine, as long as it really is a diagnostic and not playing AC:DC."

"Please. The music's on vocal control anyway, I could turn it one from here."

"Just drop me out of the hatch if you're going to play that. I'll change before I hit the ground." 

"We haven't even taken off yet Bruce." said Jane, not looking up from her tablet. "Darcy I've messed it up again, all the text appears at the same time as the graph."

"Well if you will insist on using weird open source software that isn't compatible with anything." Darcy grumbled, reaching for the tablet.

"It's compatible!"

"Most people don't have to spend the first twenty minutes of their lectures tweaking the code so their slides display properly!"

"Once! That was once! And I think the students learned a lot from it anyway."

"But not about astrophysics!"

"It's Frontiers, Darcy. Ten to one everyone else will be running something even worse." said Bruce.

"That's...not reassuring actually."

Jane buried her head in her hands. "Maybe it'd be better if they can't see my slides. The whole thing's a mess."

Thor put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I have no doubt they shall all be greatly impressed with the quality of your work."

Darcy nodded enthusiastically. "Let's face it, most of them are there to see you this year."

"That makes it so much worse!"

"When you're all done torturing Jane we have a problem." Tony called from the cockpit over Natasha's muttered "No we don't." "We're over weight, we're going to have to weigh everyone's luggage."

"Is that really necessary?" asked Darcy. Tony and Natasha said "Yes" and "No" at the same time. There was a period of confused shuffling around the weighing platform at the back of the jet, followed by a moment of shock when it was discovered that Darcy's suitcase weighed more than Darcy herself. ("Seriously, how?" "No baggage limit and Thor said he'd carry it for me, okay?") before Tony announced that even taking Darcy's luggage into account the jet still weighed more than his calculations suggested it should.

"I could get out and fly?" offered Thor.

"No!" squeaked Jane. "Sorry, I'm just really nervous about this talk. I hate conferences. Um, and you help with that. Somehow."

"It doesn't matter anyway! It won't make a difference to the flight! It's a tiny discrepancy, we have plenty of fuel, Tony's just sore that his calculations don't add up." exploded Natasha. "But if we don't take off soon we'll miss our landing slot in London and I'll miss my cocktails in Helsinki with Jess and I promise you" (she turned to glare at Tony) "you will regret that more."

"Fine. Buckle up, let's get on our way but don't blame me if we drop out of the sky before we get there!" said Tony.

"We can only hope" mumbled Jane as the vertical takeoff engaged.

Below them Peter Parker stretched out, as far as he was able to around the Quinjet's landing gear, and consoled himself by thinking about physics. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sif and Heimdall are siblings in this universe, in keeping with comics canon.
> 
> The [ Hessdalen lights](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessdalen_lights) are a real, as yet unexplained phenomenon.


	2. Chapter 2

To Jane's disappointment the Quinjet didn't drop out of the sky, or get hijacked, dragged off course by a mysterious force, boarded by aliens or suffer any other misfortune that would have meant she didn't have to attend the conference. Instead it landed without incident and took off again fifteen minutes later, carrying Natasha to her girly catch-up with agents May and Drew. As it soared into the sky a red and gold limousine pulled out of the airport, Tony Stark waving out of of the window to the eager hoard of press who followed it as best they could to Claridges Hotel.

Twenty minutes later still an unremarkable black cab pulled away from the terminal.

"Seriously, the whole of SHIELD's resources at your disposal and this is the best you could manage?" teased Darcy, gesturing at Thor and Bruce who were sitting opposite her in the back, wearing identical black sweatshirts with the hoods up. She herself was wearing a wavy platinum blonde wig and rhinestone plum-coloured cat's eye glasses. "You look like the world's smallest evil cult."

"This disguise has proved perfectly adequate on many previous occasions." Thor sounded slightly affronted.

"Sweetie, no, people were just being polite. You could at least have put Mew-Mew in, like, a sports bag or something."

"It finds it somewhat claustrophobic."

Darcy narrowed her eyes. "I can never tell if you're being serious when you say stuff like that."

"Indeed?" Thor just grinned. Darcy stuck her tongue out at him. Bruce rolled his eyes at her and then hastily looked away. For a man who needed to maintain careful control of his heart rate, being seated opposite Darcy in her undercover outfit of clinging turquoise PVC bustier and fringed suede skirt was proving something of a challenge.

"Still, I guess you did better than Jane."

"I'm wearing a skirt!" Jane squeaked, who had thought she was making a real effort to dress out of character. "And I hid my hair!"

"Under a NASA baseball cap."

"It was the only one I could find!"

"I'm just saying you could have taken the opportunity to have some fun. With an official SHIELD-sanctioned dressing up box!"

"You're hardly inconspicuous yourself Darce."

"How could I resist though, when I heard SHIELD costumed a whole op as Dolly Parton impersonators?"

Bruce groaned. "Yes Clint told me about that one. Showed me the pictures too. That was a mental image I didn't need."

"That...thing on your head's moulting! I've got blonde hairs all over me!" In the rear view mirror the taxi driver watched Jane run her fingers through Darcy's wig, trying to intercept the escaping strands before they landed on her.

Darcy's phone buzzed, a message from Ian. "Sorry, had to finish something before leaving, be over in an hour. X." Guiltily she realised that her immediate reaction was not disappointment but relief that he wouldn't be waiting there to greet her. It would give her time to settle in and greet Jane's Mom and Erik before having to worry about, well...

"So how's the presentation going anyway?" she asked hurriedly to distract herself. For a reply Jane buried her head in her hands and groaned.

"It's great Jane, it's really, really good!" Bruce hurried to reassure her.

"This is the first conference the Wakandan delegation has ever attended though! We need to convince them we're worth sharing knowledge with and I just know I'm going to mess up somehow! And I'm the keynote speaker! It's going to be like my thesis defence all over again, when I pronounced Kruskal-Szekeres wrong the whole time!"

"You have accomplished in a few short years what the greatest scholars of my world took dozens of your lifetimes to realise. Those who may judge you on the emphasis you place on a word not of your own tongue would be fools who lack vision." reassured Thor.

"And I suspect the Wakandans will do what they want to do regardless of what you say Jane. They're so far in advance of us I doubt anything we do or don't do will affect whether they decide to open up a bit. They'll have their own agenda." added Bruce.

"What if they did though! If I could just convince them my convergence data were useful enough for us to be worth collaborating with, can you imagine what we could do with their..wait, we're here!" finished Jane as the taxi pulled to a halt outside her mother's house. "Shit, I don't have any pounds with me."

Darcy, who had anticipated Jane's inability to deal practically with anything between subatomic and interplanetary in scale, extracted her wallet with a rustle of sequins and handed it to Bruce who was closest to the driver. They all scrambled out of the cab with Thor bringing Mjolnir and Darcy's suitcase, the latter rather awkwardly, as the extreme weight of its contents had already torn every convenient handle off.

The taxi driver pulled away, headed for the nearest taxi rank. Spotting a friend he pulled in beside him and wound down his window.

"'Ere, you'll never guess who I just had in my cab!"

"'Oo's that then?"

"That Lady Gaga! Had her hairdresser with her and her security guards an' all!"

 

From the darkened van parked across the street, she watched as a tiny, bird-like woman appeared in the doorway and flung her arms round Jane, then Thor and then, after a taking a brief moment to figure out who the strange blonde woman was, Darcy. She then extended a polite hand to Bruce and all five of them vanished into the brightly lit hallway.

Her lips pursed into a tight little smile as she raised her phone to her ear. 

"I was right. They're staying with her mother." she said.


	3. Chapter 3

The elder Doctor Foster ushered them into the warm front room. Delicious savoury smells wafted from the kitchen.

"Make yourselves at home, please. Jane and Thor, you're in the front bedroom. Please try not to set the mattress on fire this time." she said.

Darcy gasped. "You set the mattress on fire? At your Mom's house?"

"Oh my God Darcy, it wasn't, like, a sex thing or anything. I was soldering in bed."

Darcy considered for a moment. "You know, I actually think that's worse."

"Doctor Banner, I'm made up the sofa bed for you in the study. I's offer the guest room, but Eric's coming tomorrow and he's used to it I'm afraid, routine really is helpful to him."

Bruce smiled. "Thank you Doctor Foster. I'm sure it will be a lot more comfortable than many places I've slept."

"Please, call me Rebekah."

"Bruce."

"Darcy you're in Jane's old room. It's very small but I doubt you'll be spending many nights there anyway."

"Hahah, yeah." said Darcy, flashing a wide, brilliant smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"So let me get you something to drink and we can eat when Ian and Tony Stark get here."

"Just Tony." said Darcy, and then gabbled, feeling as though all eyes were on her. "Ian's held up in the lab. We shouldn't wait for him. Uh, let me help you. With the drinks."

"I am also happy to assist. What would everyone care for?" asked Thor.

"I have a pot of Lady Grey brewing." said Rebekah Foster.

"That would be perfect." said Bruce.

"Milk?" asked Jane.

"Okay sure." said Darcy, retreating gratefully to the safety of the kitchen where she slumped against the refrigerator and pulled her wig off. Thor followed her and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"It's cool dude." she sighed, pulling the milk bottle out of the fridge. Thor investigated the larder and grunted in satisfaction at the discovery of several bottles of real ale that he had left behind on his last visit. He selected a bottle of Old Nick's Fury and waved it at Darcy.

"Would you care to try one this time? Truly they are greatly superior to the ales of the land of your birth, and you appear in need of somewhat stronger refreshment than tea can provide."

"Eew no, it's like drinking molasses. And tea is good. We're in England. It's all about the tea." she said, arranging the pot and cups on a tray.

"As you wish. But should you have need of..."

"...of alcoholic gravy? Sure, if I suffer some sort of head trauma that damages the taste centres of my brain I'll hit you up." said Darcy, stalking determinedly into the front room with the tray. Thor poured himself a pint of The Plougher Cosmic and followed her, settling himself on the coach next to Jane. Everyone politely ignored the alarming creaking sound it made and poured their drinks. 

They were interrupted by the whir of repulsors from outside, as Tony swooped down and executed a flawless landing on the patio. Jane hopped up to let him in as the suit folded itself away around him.

"At least someone knows how to land without knocking my geraniums over." observed Rebekah Foster. Thor blushed.

Tony strode into the room and extended a hand to her. As she took it he knelt to kiss the back of hers.

"Rebekah Foster! I'd heard that you were as well published as your daughter, but not that you were as beautiful!"

"And even less fond of being condescended to, Doctor Stark." she replied, narrowing her eyes.

"Noted." Tony winced. Behind them Thor, who had been ruminating on a cracked ceramic pot from Kew Gardens in a discontinued colour of glaze, perked up considerably.

"Anyway dinner should be ready now." said Rebekah, clapping her hands together. "Darcy, if you're sure we needn't wait for Ian?"

"I'm sure."

"Then Thor, I only have the one pair of oven gloves, could you?"

"Of course Lady Rebekah." They headed back into the kitchen.

"You flirted with my Mum! How could you?" squeaked Jane.

"Sorry, it's... Kind of a reflex when I get intimidated."

Behind Tony Bruce buried his head in his hands.

"But you flirted with my Mum!"

"What can I say. I am very sorry and it will not happen again."

Rebekah and Thor returned, each carrying a steaming dish. Everyone made their way to table.

"Help yourselves, it's vegetable lasagne. Jane, there are no mushrooms or pepper in that corner and no cheese on top." Jane's edged herself as directed, while everyone else poured wine or attacked the other dish, and for a while there was no conversation except to remark on how good the food was and small talk about the journey. Darcy was considering a second helping when the doorbell rang.

"I suppose that will be Ian?" asked Rebekah.

"Uh yeah, of course, I guess I'll go and answer it then!" said Darcy, standing hurriedly and hitting the table with her hip hard enough to jolt everyone's glasses. She made her way down the stairs to the hall, considering what to say after the awkwardness of their last Skype conversation, but as it turned out none of the greetings she mentally reviewed were needed. Ian's first words when she opened the door were "What are you wearing?"

"Um, oh, yeah? It's a disguise? See Tony thought there would be a lot of press at the airport and so we should try to be inconspicuous and, uh..." her voice trailed away in the face of the look of blank horror Ian was giving her.

"You thought that was inconspicuous? Darcy it hardly covers more than your bra! Is this how you dress when I'm not around?"

"Ian no! It was just a bit of fun for the journey!" Ian looked unconvinced. "Don't you think you should come in now? Dinner's served." she pleaded.

"It's okay, I'm not hungry, I knew it was going to be a late one so I microwaved a Ginsters at the lab."

"I don't even know what that is but I'm guessing it means you don't want dinner? I told you we were going to be eating, Ian."

"No, I'm just here to go over some stuff with Jane."

"Oh, that's all you're here for is it?"

"Don't be like that Darcy! You know this is the biggest conference of my career. And Jane's too, for that matter."

"Fine. Let's just go in there then."

She led him back upstairs, a tightness in her throat that made food suddenly seem very unappealing, sensing his disapproving stare at the shortness of her skirt the whole way.

"Good evening everyone. Hello Jane, how was the journey? Did you get get a chance to review the Maslov data I sent?"

"Uh yeah, I looked over it, I was mostly working on my talk. Sit down, let me get you some dinner." Jane pulled out the chair between her place and Darcy's as Thor spooned out lasagne for him.

"Thanks but I already ate. What did you think of the muon radial scattering?"

"Actually I had a look at that and I'm not convinced it's not an artefact." Interjected Bruce as Thor surreptitiously slid Ian's portion onto his own plate.

"But we already resolved the detector feedback issue, and we replicated LaShauna's data just fine, if it was still playing up that shouldn't have been possible." Jane replied.

"Did we though? See I know your string attenuation equation was applicable the first time, but hear me out..." Darcy rolled her eyes at Thor as the conversation rapidly became completely impenetrable. He responded by winking at her and flicking a pea into her wine glass with his fingernail.

"Hey! No using your powers for evil dude!" she protested. Ian shot her a disgusted look before continuing "And so as I was saying, we need to get Nisha to take a look at those values..."

"If you'd just let me build you the damn detector it wouldn't have been a problem."

"We've already been over this Tony, your one simply wouldn't give us the flexibility of calibration we need..."

"You don't know that because you never let me build it!"

"So what do you think the Wakandans will be like?" asked Darcy, noting the elder Dr Foster's polite silence trying to shift the conversation into more generally understandable territory.

"I met a retired Dora Milaje once." remarked Rebekah, taking a sip from her wine glass. The whole table fell silent.

"You never told me about that!" said Jane indignantly.

"I've done a lot of things in my life that I never got around to telling you darling." she said. "But this was before you were born. In fact, as I recall I was pregnant with you at the time. This was during the coup, and I'd been held up at a checkpoint was driving back to Nairobi just as the sun was setting. And I saw this elderly woman, chalk white hair and maybe an inch taller than me, walking along the side of the road. She had nothing with her but a staff and a little leather bag, no bigger than my purse. So of course I had to stop and offer her a lift because back then that road just wasn't safe after dark. And you know, the more I think about it the more I think she accepted because she was worried about something happening to me."

She paused to take another drink. "What was she like?" whispered Jane.

"She told me she had been a Dora Milaje, then a teacher for the order, and now she wanted to see the world before she died. Asked me all about Europe, seemed to think she would make her way there eventually when she'd seen Africa. I often wonder if she did. Asked me all about my life, then pointed to a tree and asked to be dropped there. The last I saw of her she was walking off into the bush, like she knew exactly where she was going. She seemed to find the idea that she had anything to fear that night quite amusing."

"Did she tell you anything about Wakanda?"

"Do you know, the frustrating thing was that she was just as interested in me as I was in her. She seemed to be enjoying giving away as little information as possible while getting as much as she could out of me. She did give me a bracelet though, said it was traditional for the women in her village to wear them during childbirth to grant strength and bravery."

"Mum! You had a Wakandan bracelet all this time and you never told me about it?"

"I never knew you were interested dear. I'll see if I can dig it out for you tomorrow, I think it's somewhere in my office at the university."

"Oh yes, I'd love to see that!"

"Me too!" said Bruce.

"As would I." agreed Thor.

Ian stood up. "Well it was good to see you all but now we've got that sorted I'd probably better be going. Darcy?"

"You know what, it's been a long day, I think I'll stay here for the night." she managed.

"If you want. I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Nine thirty for breakfast, then we'll all go and register together." confirmed Jane as Ian said his goodbyes. These was an awkward silence as he left, Darcy having declined to walk him to the door in favour of staring at her empty plate.

"So, who wants dessert then? I made profiteroles!" said Rebekah, a little too brightly.

***

"Could we maybe swap?" Darcy asked later, as Thor washed up while she stood behind him with the teatowel. The physicists were putting the final touches for their plans for the next day and Rebekah had retired for an early night.

"Swap?"

"I wash and you dry?"

"If that is your preference? The water is very hot though, I must confess I am still not entirely certain of the temperature tolerances of mortal flesh but I suspect that..."

"Shift over dude, it's fine." said Darcy, thrusting her hands into the sink. The water temperature was just at the edge painful but the burning in her hands distracted from the burning behind her eyes and it felt good to scrub at the baked on crust of the lasagne dish. Thor picked up the damp teatowel she had discarded on the side and turned it over in his hands before venturing "Darcy, my knowledge of your culture is still limited but the way Ian spoke to you earlier did not seem...entirely respectful."

She stiffened. She had known this was coming, even Jane couldn't have failed to notice something was up the way she and Ian had been behaving, but she had still hoped she would somehow be able to get away without explaining herself. "It's nothing, it's just...I mean I deserved it, the way I spoke to him yesterday."

"I do not think anyone ever deserves to be treated thus by one who professes to love them."

"That's just it, I mean, well, love is, love is a very big concept I guess, I'm not sure I really how I feel about it right now." said Darcy, determinedly addressing her words to the sink of greasy bubbles in front of her.

"It is normal, I think, to be uncertain and certainly nothing to be...Excuse me." said Thor, pushing her gently aside and in a motion almost too quick for her to process opening the kitchen window and leaping through Darcy was left gaping into the darkness, the cool, damp night air in her face. The other three barrelled into the kitchen, followed by miscellaneous pieces of floating army swooping to attach themselves to Tony. 

"We saw Mjolnir come by, what happened?" gasped Jane.

"I don't know! Thor just jumped out of the window!" Just as I was about to actually tell him how shitty I've been feeling lately, Darcy added mentally.

Jane just nodded and extracted a breadknife from a drawer. "Okay Bruce, can you get out on the patio please? Sorry it's just my mom had the kitchen redone last year and she really likes it."

"Sure." said Bruce, with a this-is-my-life-now shrug. 

"I'm not detecting anything unusual on any scans." said Tony, now fully armoured. "Except, okay except there is now a Norse god in your window." Everyone turned to see a rather sheepish looking Thor crouched on the windowsill, Mjolnir in hand.

"My friends, I am sorry. I thought that I felt Asgardian Magic outside, of a most unusual type, but it appears I was mistaken." he said, gingerly stepping over the dirty dishes on the counter. 

"So are we good?" asked Tony. "Nothing going on? Jane can put that thing down, we're not about to be attacked by brioche monsters or anything."

"No, I'm sorry, there seems to be no threat at all."

"Okay well, that was fun, I wouldn't have eaten that much lasagne if I'd known I'd be putting the suit back on straight way. I'll just go and get Bruce back in then." said Tony, disappearing.

"Are you okay Darce?" asked Jane, who had noticed her friend's frozen silence through the entire incident. 

"It's cool, I just started telling Thor some personal stuff and he threw himself out the window."

Thor looked stricken. "Darcy, I apologise, I did not mean to..."

"No no, I know you have to, you know, do you." said Darcy and burst into tears. Startled, Thor pulled her into a hug and shot Jane a "Help me!" look over her head as she sobbed onto his chest. Unfortunately Jane returned the look.

"Darcy, look I know something's up. If you want to talk?"

"I'm just really tired okay. It's been a long day and a long journey and we've got a big day tomorrow. I just want to go to bed. Things will be better in the morning."

"Um, okay, well if you think that would help. We'll finish washing up. But you know we're always here if you want to talk okay?"

"Yeah, sure. Thanks guys. Goodnight." said Darcy, almost running to her room. Once there she discovered that she couldn't be bothered hunting for pyjamas in her gargantuan suitcase and simply crawled under the covers in her underwear.

"Things will be better in the morning" she repeated to herself, closing her eyes.

***

A pair of London pigeons circling above the street settled on the balcony railing of an empty flat opposite Jane's Mom's house. In the orange glow of the streetlights the shape of one flickered and expanded, revealing the blonde woman from Hessdalen valley perched on the rail.

"I fear this will not work while he is with her." she said.

Beside her, the other pigeon transformed not into the muscular, dark-haired man who had been with her in the valley but into an athletic-looking young woman who could have been his female twin. Her companion's complete lack of surprise at this development indicated that this was a common occurrence.

The dark-haired woman spat. "My mouth tastes like pigeon." she complained.

"I don't have any more fudge." said the blonde, sighing. "Let us try again tomorrow."


End file.
